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Sunday, May 22, 2016

Audio and Essays Parashat B’chukotai

Monday, May 16, 2016

Parashat B’har 5776 Seasons in the Sun

Echoes of Eden
Rabbi Ari Kahn
Parashat Bhar 5776
Seasons in the Sun

Shabbat is a day of rest. The Torah teaches us that just as people need to rest one day in seven, so, too, the land of Israel, which is sensitive in more ways than we might have imagined, must rest for one year in seven. This sabbatical year, known as shmittah, is referred to as Shabbat Shabbaton, a super-Shabbat or double Shabbat. Moreover, at the end of seven cycles of sabbatical years, we are commanded to observe the Jubilee (Yovel), in a sense pressing a reset button, reverting all land in Eretz Yisrael back to its ancestral ownership.

You shall count seven sabbatical years, that is, seven times seven years. The period of the seven sabbatical cycles shall thus be 49 years. Then, on the 10th day of the seventh month, you shall make a proclamation with the ram's horn. This proclamation with the ram's horn is to be made on Yom Kippur. (Vayikra 25:8-9)

This seems somewhat awkward: Why is Yom Kippur designated as the day to begin the Jubilee Year? Logic would dictate that Rosh Hashanah, the day that begins the new year, should also mark the beginning of the Jubilee Year. Why does the Torah command us to delay the ceremony until Yom Kippur? As we shall see, two factors are at play, and understanding them will solve our dilemma.

Yom Kippur is generally considered the holiest day of the year. Aside from the prohibition of work, which is a standard feature of every Shabbat and festival, there is an additional prohibition of food and drink. Perhaps this is why the Torah calls Yom Kippur Shabbat Shabbaton (Vayikra 23:32), making it sound very much like a double Shabbat; on this day, we rest from work and rest from food.  Another double Shabbat is the holiday of Shavuot. Seven weeks, beginning on Passover, are counted, and the fiftieth day is declared a festival. As opposed to the usual cycle of six days followed by Shabbat, or even six years followed by shmittah, Shavuot is based upon seven times seven; once again, Shavuot could be considered a Shabbat Shabbaton.  

The Jubilee Year (Yovel, in Hebrew) is a macro-version of these smaller cycles Shabbat, Shavuot, and shmittah. In the weekly cycle, we count seven days; in the shmittah cycle, seven years. In the yearly cycle of holidays, we count seven weeks from Passover, and on the fiftieth day we celebrate the festival of Shavuot. On this day, the Torah was given to the nation that had been waiting expectantly from the moment of the Exodus until the Revelation at Sinai. Unfortunately, this is not the day we actually received the Torah. Moshe ascended the mountain to receive the Tablets from God and bring them down to earth, but the people below became fidgety, and made a Golden Calf. They were not ready to receive what God had given; the precious Tablets of Stone were destroyed.

Moshe ascended once again, interceded on behalf of the people and begged God to forgive them, and eventually received the second Tablets - on Yom Kippur, the day that would forever be associated with forgiveness. The root of this forgiveness lies in our being willing and able to receive the Torah on that day. In a sense, then, Yom Kippur is a spiritual reset button, cancelling debts we have incurred through sin throughout the year, just as the Yovel resets ownership and cancels monetary debts, cleaning the slate and allowing us to begin again as a society. This parallel is the first factor that explains the connection between Yovel and Yom Kippur.

To understand the second factor, we must appreciate the inner workings of the Jewish calendar. Our calendar is complicated: While the months are dictated by the new moon, the days begin and end with the rising and setting of the sun. While the date of the holidays are dependent on the appearance and disappearance of the moon, Shabbat is dependent on the setting of the sun at the end of the sixth day.

Shabbat was established directly by God; every seventh day since Creation has been, and always will be, Shabbat. No human input is involved. The holidays, on the other hand, have been subcontracted to man: The Jewish court decides when the new moon has appeared and, as a result, when the holidays begin. In a sense, we may say that the lunar cycle is a metaphor or an expression of our relationship with God: The moons light is a reflection of the sun; it has no luminescence of its own. Thus, the power of the Jewish court to determine when the holidays will be celebrated is a reflection, as it were, of Gods mastery of time, space and matter. Our mandate is given to us by God. The sun, the source of light and sustenance, represents God; the Jewish People is represented by the moon, as we reflect and imitate Gods creative and sustaining powers. (Of course, this is only a metaphor; the sun has no power of its own, and should never be an object of worship.)

So much for days and months; years are more complicated. Jewish holidays are comprised of both an historical and an agricultural component, and are therefore connected to particular seasons. For this reason, the calendar must be adjusted: The lunar months must maintain fidelity to the seasons of the solar year. And so, the Jewish calendar is comprised of solar days, lunar months, and solar years (with periodic corrections to compensate for the differences between them).

Then end of 12 lunar months will inevitably be ten days shorter than the solar year. Therefore, while Rosh Hashanah marks the start of the new calendric year, it is, in fact, ten days short in terms of the completion of the solar year. Thus, the calendar is adjusted every few years by the addition of an extra month, so the holidays remain in their proper seasons.

This unique system was the basis for a fascinating teaching of The Vilna Gaon (found in his commentary to Sifra Detzniuta chapter 2) that has far-reaching religious ramifications: The differential between the solar and lunar systems explains the efficacy of the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, known as the Ten Days of Repentance. These ten days are the gap between the solar and lunar years, but in more than pure mathematical terms. Have we ever stopped to consider why it is that increased acts of kindness and more stringent observance during these ten days are effective in tipping the balance for the year that has just ended? If, in fact, Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of a new year, would it not make far more sense to attempt to influence the balance sheet before the years books are closed? How can acts performed on or after Rosh Hashanah impact the previous year? The Vilna Gaon explains that these ten days are, in fact, the last ten days of the previous solar year. The lunar year ends ten days earlier, and is marked by Rosh Hashanah, but the next ten days are a sort of calendric ex territoria; they are the point at which two systems overlap, and are therefore most efficacious for stock-taking, reevaluation, repentance –“reset.

Similarly, the Chatam Sofer (in his commentary on Vayikra 25:9) records an insight he learned from his teacher, Rabbi Pinchas Horowitz, that involves this ten-day overlap: Due to the discrepancy between the lunar and solar years, the Jubilee year begins on Yom Kippur ten days after Rosh Hashanah. The New Year is, indeed, celebrated on Rosh Hashanah, but the fiftieth year of the cycle, dictated by the agricultural calendar and thus by the sun, does not begin until ten days later, bringing us to Yom Kippur.

While we may wonder at the mathematical symmetry with which our calendar reconciles two systems and creates a unified Jewish calendar, we must not overlook the deeper philosophical message: The reconciliation of the lunar and solar cycles, which represent the Children of Israel and God, respectively, is imbedded in the Jewish life cycle. On Yom Kippur, full reconciliation is achieved both in the mathematical sense and in the spiritual sense. On this day, we accept the Torah the second Tablets, given to us despite our sins. On this day, in the Jubilee Year, we return the land to its proper owner. On this day, as our lunar months once again align with our solar years, we reconcile the sun with the moon, symbolic of the People of Israel redoubling their efforts towards reconciliation with God.

For a more in-depth analysis see:
Echoes of Eden

Sunday, May 15, 2016

Audio and Essays Parashat Bhar

Audio and Essays Parashat Bhar

New Echoes of Eden Project:
Parashat B’har 5776
Seasons in the Sun

Audio:

New
Cosmic Harmony

Shemitah Shabbat and Exile

Shemitah Shabbat and Exile (long version)






Were the Details Given at Sinai?






Essays:
Living and Loving

Dayenu! (B’har)

Audio:
Coming Home

A Time to Trust (the Age of the Universe)



Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Parashat Emor 5776 Sanctify Life

Echoes of Eden
      Rabbi Ari Kahn
Parashat Emor 5776
Sanctify Life

Sometimes life is simple; sometimes it is terribly complex. Simplicity is when the choices presented are clear; good and bad are easy to identify, and good is an easily accessible choice. Sometimes, though, we are forced to choose between two goods, or alternatively, to choose the lesser of two evils. It is in these situations that ethics come into play. Sometimes our considerations will focus on short term success; other times, long term, macro considerations prevail. Sometimes our choices are completely logical, and sometimes what drives us is something beyond logic.

The Torah values life in many ways, and is even described as a book of life:

Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold on her; and happy is everyone who holds her fast. (Proverbs 3:17,18)

Additionally, the Torah instructs us to use the laws it lays down in order to live:

And guard my statutes, and my laws which a person should perform and live with them: I am God. (Vayikra 18:5). 
Before you I have placed life and death, the blessing and the curse. You must choose life, so that you and your descendants will survive. (D’varim 30:19)

Sometimes, though, life is complex. The value of human life and the Torah principle of choosing life may at times lead us to conclude that we should avoid any conflict, regardless of the circumstances, the threat, the ideal or cause. An extreme choice of life would render an army unnecessary. The only problem with this approach, of course, is the attitude of our neighbors. We would be gambling our lives and the wellbeing of our children on the currency of the goodwill of others. Choosing pacifism because of our love of life may well result in the opposite of life.
Mahatma Gandhi, who not only preached pacifism but personified it, preached to the Jews in 1938, that for the sake of avoiding conflict we should embrace suffering and death:

If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy which no number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside Germany can. Indeed, even if Britain, France and America were to declare hostilities against Germany, they can bring no inner joy, no inner strength. The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy.[1]

In the face of this type of pacifism, we choose life – even if the path to life is war and, paradoxically, unavoidably, death.

In this week’s parasha we find the verses that have guided Jewish thought and action for millennia:

Be careful regarding My commandments and keep them; I am God. Do not desecrate My holy name. Sanctify me among the Children of Israel. I am God who sanctifies you (Vayikra 22:31-32)

On the one hand, the Talmudic tradition (Brachot 21b) derives from these verses the value of communal prayer: We pray together and thereby sanctify God as a community. The image of a nation united in prayer is idyllic and elevated. On the other hand, the Talmud understands that sanctifying God’s Name is often far more demanding. There are times when we must draw a line in the sand and even sacrifice our lives to sanctify the name of God (Sanhedrin 74a). In such cases, the choice of martyrdom or war is a short-term tactic in the pursuit if the long term strategy.

Throughout our history, there have been countless Jews from all walks of life - rich and poor, young and old, women and men - who chose death or a path that led to death, in the shadow of the cross, crescent, or swastika. In the modern world, the State of Israel embodies and symbolizes the Jewish People, and today’s anti-Semitism hides behind increasingly politically correct anti-Israel rhetoric. Here in Israel, though, this new-old anti-Jewish hatred is not limited to words.  Every day, we are threatened by knives, guns, tunnels, bombs and rockets. In the pursuit of peace, we have lost many brave people, young and old. They, too, are holy, like the martyrs throughout Jewish history whose lives were lost sanctifying God’s name. The victims of violence, the soldiers who have fallen in defense of the Jewish People and the Land of Israel, chose life for us all.

One soldier, an officer named Roi Klein, chose life in a somewhat unconventional manner: During a particularly difficult battle in southern Lebanon, Major Klein detected a grenade that had been hurled at his Golani troops. He lunged for it, smothering it with his body, and screamed for his soldiers to take cover. And then, like Rabbi Akiva, and like so many martyrs throughout our history, he calmly but with intense conviction said the Shma. Roi Klein did not choose death; he chose life for his soldiers and life for his People. He sanctified God’s Name, and became sanctified himself, in the midst of the Jewish people.

As we mark Yom HaZikaron we remember all those who fell. May Roi Klein, and all the soldiers who gave their lives for our freedom, be elevated to the highest places in heaven. May there be no more need for sacrifice like theirs. May we merit sanctifying God in life, in prayer, living in peace. We continue to pray that the nations of the world will, at last, recognize our right to live in peace in our homeland, and welcome us into the neighborhood that has been far too contentious. For our part, we will continue to choose life, and to mourn those who did not live to see the peace we so desperately seek.

For more in depth study see:



[1] The Gandhi Reader: A Sourcebook of His Life and Writings, p. 318ff.

Echoes of Eden